Chapter 15
Finn
“He’s doing this on purpose,” I said to Easton.
My brain was starting to feel like a patchwork quilt of death. Images of bodies stitched together in bloody little square-shaped memories were branded onto my retinas. Ever since the meeting, I’d barely had time to stop my head from spinning between reaps, let alone check on Emma as much as I’d like. I had a feeling that was the point, but was it punishment or a diversion? It felt like both.
It didn’t help that I couldn’t get last night with Emma out of my head. I didn’t want to get it out of my head. Talking to her until she fell asleep. Watching her crooked grin as she drifted off… She’d looked just like Allison in that moment. It had taken everything in me not to go corporeal and touch her.
Easton peered into the dark alley in front of us. His violet eyes swirled with death. A rat scurried between my legs before it disappeared into a knocked-over metal trash can. Deep in the shadows, someone was whimpering. “Of course he’s doing it on purpose,” he said, pulling his scythe out. “What did you do this time?”
I’d let her see me. Touch me. I’d told her everything. Well, almost everything. That I’d barely managed to keep myself from going corporeal was the only reason the flesh wasn’t being filleted from my body at this very moment.
Revealing myself to her was probably one of the worst decisions I’d made since pushing Allison through the portal, but it felt…amazing. Seeing her rattled and sleep-deprived in the kitchen this morning didn’t, though. If we were going to do this, I’d have to let her get her sleep. The thought stopped me. Was I going to keep doing this?
When Easton raised a brow, waiting, I finally just said, “The usual.”
“Well if it’s your usual, then you’re lucky a marathon of reaps is all he’s done.”
Easton slipped between the two crumbled brick buildings and I followed close behind. We were going to have to move fast. This kind of dark was a world all its own, where things crept and crawled and died in the night. The shadows were going to be hard to spot here.
Easton stopped a few feet from two ruined bodies, lying in bloody heaps on the pavement. The faces were black and blue and swollen beyond recognition, their limbs folded and bent into odd angles. They’d been beaten to death. I pressed the back of my wrist against my mouth and backed away a step.
Easton looked at me over his shoulder and raised a brow. “What’s the matter, sweetheart? Squeamish?”
“I just don’t see many like this.” I stepped up to get a better look and frowned. My reaps were generally people who still needed to grow up. Ones who were straddling a moral line. Not grown men part of a drug deal gone wrong. “They’re older. Way older than my usual reaps. Weird.”
Easton frowned and stepped into a dark puddle of blood that glistened in the green glow of the streetlamp. “That’s because they’re supposed to both be mine.”
I couldn’t hide my relief. “Thank God.”
But something was wrong. The pull was there again, burning and insistent. Forcing my feet toward the dead guy in the blue Windbreaker. “What’s going on?”
Easton looked at the dead man and back to me, his dark eyebrows drawn together like he was trying to figure out a puzzle. “You have to take him.”
“What? But he’s not mine.”
He tipped his head back and groaned into the night. “Don’t you get it? Balthazar’s making good on his promise. Did you honestly think an unusually busy day at the office was going to be your only slap on the wrist?”
I shook my head almost mechanically, not wanting to believe it. No way did he know what I’d done last night. I hadn’t gone corporeal. I’d made sure of it.
“He warned you,” he said. “Now it’s time for you to get that glimpse he promised. And if we’re all wearing our honesty hats here, I think this might be just what you need. Maybe if you see what he’s threatening you with, you’ll stop being such a dumbass.”
My chest throbbed with something like fear, but it was nothing compared to the clawing need to take the soul in front of me. A hollow hiss crept out of the darkness. Against the brick, a shadow slithered up the wall and then vanished, camouflaged by the night.
“Come on.” Easton nudged my shoulder. “Just follow my lead.”
I stepped forward and slid my scythe from its holster. All I could see when I stared down into the man’s cracked-open face was flames. Searing, painful, nightmare-inducing flames. I didn’t want to do this. Son of a bitch I did not want to do this! Out of nowhere, a cold whisper circled my ear.
Get to work, Finn, or I might decide to make your stay more…permanent.
Balthazar’s voice sent a shiver racing down my spine. Closing my eyes, I swung out and listened to the whistle of metal fly through the air before it plunged into the man’s soft flesh. Easton and I yanked at the same time and the souls came up, side by side, with dazed looks on their faces.
They looked gray, no shimmer, not an ounce of light left in them. The one with shaggy black hair swallowed and looked behind them at the shells of their former selves. “Holy sh—”
Easton laughed and slapped him on the shoulder. “Trust me, friend. There’s nothing holy about where you’re going. And just a tip.” He leaned in close and balanced his arm on the soul’s shoulder. “Don’t say holy down there. They don’t like it.”
“Down there?” The soul backed away from Easton until he was standing in a pile of empty flesh. “What are you talking about?”
“Oh, please. Tell me you’re brighter than that.” Easton pointed to the silent guy in the blue Windbreaker. “Look. Your buddy over here already has it all figured out. Don’t ya, big guy?”
He nodded, staring blankly at the blood-splattered pavement. “Hell.” He looked up at his friend. “We’re going to Hell, Caleb.”
“Ding, ding, ding!” Easton smiled. “We have a winner.”
At the sound of his words, a loud crack split the pavement, and screams echoed from the pit. A black, oil-like substance bubbled up from the crevice and started a slow and steady swirl, picking up screams and tossing them into the night. I stepped back and clenched my jaw. I’d seen the freak show that was Easton’s departure for the underworld lots of times, but this time it was different.
This time they expected me to go with him.
“Anybody feel like a swim?” Easton slid his scythe back into his belt. Before either of them could say a word, he had the dark-haired guy by the arm. Easton gave me a two-finger salute and stepped off the ledge and into the black vortex of screams, dragging the flailing soul named Caleb behind him.
My soul tried to back away but I grabbed him by the wrist and shook my head. “Don’t make this worse than it has to be.”
I didn’t think after that. I just wanted to get this god-awful night over with. I wanted to get back to Emma and make sure I hadn’t driven her off the deep end. Squeezing his wrist, I stepped off into the darkness.
Hitting the ground sent a shock wave of heat up through the soles of my feet. Ash fluttered down out of the sky like dirty snow, and barbed wire stretched down the path on either side of us, held up by intricate iron fence posts that were topped with skulls. The sharp metal thorns dripped with something red. Up ahead, an enormous structure of jagged ash-covered stone erupted from the ground, the entrance blocked by two flaming gates.
When Easton stopped just short of the gates to talk to someone cloaked in black, I turned in a slow circle, not wanting to see, but needing to. An island of misfit playground equipment sat solemnly on the other side of the fence. I couldn’t stop staring at one of the rusted swing sets. It looked just like the one Henry and I used to play on after church on Sundays when we were little. One of the swings glided back and forth with no one in it. Next to it, a merry-go-round with chipped red and yellow paint turned slowly. A boy laughed. I wiped the ash out of my eyes and moved closer to the fence.
“Finn!” the voice squealed. “Push me higher!”
A young boy stood on the other side of the fence, the right side of his face charred. Embers glowed through the hollow hole in his cheek, exposing a row of little white teeth. On the good side of his face, one bright-green eye peered back at me.
“Henry?” I whispered. My little brother shouldn’t be here. Couldn’t be.
“You’re going to burn, Finn,” he said. The embers sparked a flame at the bottom of his blue button-down shirt and sped their way up the right side of Henry’s chest, but he didn’t cry. He watched me until the orange flames swallowed him.
“Henry!” I gripped the barbed fence, but strong hands pulled me back.
“What are you doing?” Easton spun me around to face him. I swallowed and looked past him at the two souls we’d reaped looking at me like I’d lost my mind. “Who’s Henry?”
“My brother. He…” I glanced over my shoulder, but nothing was there anymore. Only rock and ash and the sound of a girl screaming like her guts were being ripped out.
“They’re using your memories,” Easton let me go. “Suck it up and get back to work.”
All of this and we weren’t even inside the gates of Hell. I blinked up at the sky, trying to shake away the image of Henry burning as I trudged back to the souls.
“Let’s go,” Easton said. The flaming gates swung open and I barreled through into the darkness. Heat seared my skin. Memories burned the inside of my skull. I blinked away the drop of sweat that trickled down into my eye.
Wait.
Touching my fingers to my forehead, I stopped. I was sweating. “How…?”
“Once you cross through the gates, you’re flesh. It doesn’t matter what you are. Alive. Dead. Something else. They want you to be able to feel the pain.”
“I-I don’t understand,” I stammered. “This…it’s impossible.”
“Don’t say that,” Easton said. “They’ll just take it as a challenge.”
He jerked his chin to motion for me to follow, so I did, letting the flames at my back drive me forward. It was dark in the cave and things hissed and growled from the corners.
We came to another set of smaller gates and Easton rapped his scythe on the bars. “Special delivery!”
When the soul beside him started to cry, Easton rolled his eyes. “Seriously, man? Did you honestly think a drug dealer and a rapist would end up anywhere else? You really should consider the occupational hazards that go along with a career before you commit yourself.”
Easton brushed the ash off his jacket like he was talking about the guy’s 401(k). I didn’t know how he could be so calm in a place like this.
Out of the corner of my eye, a girl with soft blond hair bled into my vision. I gritted my teeth and turned my head. Emma stared back at me with empty pits for eyes. Black spider-webbed veins popped up from her pale white skin.
“What’s wrong?” she whispered. “You still love me, don’t you, Finn?”
A sick feeling churned in my stomach.
“You did this to me,” she sobbed. “Look at me. Look at me!”
It’s not real. It’s not real.
The gates creaked and swung open. Two hooded figures stepped out and sized up the souls in tow. Long, curved, dark claws poked out of their draping sleeves. Red eyes glowed from the empty black spaces where faces should have been.
Easton shoved his soul at one of them and nodded for me to do the same. I couldn’t shove him like that. Instead, I patted him on the back and gave him a gentle push. He squeezed his eyes shut and said, “Shit…just tell me when it’s all over.”
The demon under the cloak laughed and clutched him around the throat. “That’s the best part. It’s never going to be over.”